HTC London Event Presentation with Philip Blair [video]

While we published a summary of the evening, we haven't yet posted our capture of the main presentation and the unveiling of the HTC Titan and Radar. Feast your eyes on the above video. The atmosphere and music through the presentation and handset videos was superb, you could sense the excitement in the audience (even though we still believe some were expecting Android devices).

Philip Blair, vice-president of product and operations, was the bringer of much happiness and unleashed the charged crowd onto the demo tables (it reminded me of the Spanish bull run).

Huge thanks to Alex Dobie from Android Central for coming along and capturing the footage!

HTC DLNA app in Mango

Another much requested feature is media streaming to other media platforms (via UPnP protocols) in the house. At the HTC event in London yesterday we managed to get a walkthrough by a HTC representative of the HTC Titan, showing the HTC DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) app.

Check out the video of the demonstration below, you can see the DLNA app at about 2:10 in. We must say that the rep did a good job at showing the top features in the short amount of time (the night was hectic) and both Windows Phone Mango and the HTC Titan looked incredible.

Bouncy Mouse swings into the Marketplace

Bouncy Mouse, the popular iPhone (as demoed in the video) and Android game, has landed in the Windows Phone Marketplace. The has you play the role of a mouse who bounces and swings his way through a series of mazes and obstacles to collect cheese and take out a rival cat. From the Marketplace description,

All was good on Mouse Island until the thieving Captain Cat stole the Big Cheese! Help Bouncy Mouse get the Big Cheese back and restore peace to the world. It's a big task for a little mouse!

Bouncy Mouse is nicely animated and has thirty levels of challenging play to keep you busy. Updates are expected later this Fall that will bring additional levels to the game. Each level is re-playable so you can try to better your score. In just tinkering with Bouncy Mouse for a short time, I found it to be a fun, challenging, entertaining game for the Windows Phone.

There is a trial version available for Bouncy Mouse with the full version running $.99. You can download Bouncy Mousehere (opens Zune) at the Marketplace.

Trail Buddy - Review

Trail Buddy is a location tracking application for your Windows Phone that can be used for hiking, biking, geocaching and other activities that require GPS and/or mapping. Trail Buddy's features include:

INRIX Traffic gets Mango update too

INRIX, the popular and free traffic app which is on various platforms, has been bumped to v3.0 already. We've been playing with it for the last few days (preview) and now you can too as it's live in the Marketplace.

New features, for Mango devices only, include:

Live Tiles: Mango's vast improvement to Live Tiles gives consumers the ability to bookmark pages from apps like INRIX Traffic on their Windows phone home screen for quick reference when they’re on the go. Drivers can save traffic map views around common destinations like home or work or bookmark a stretch of road along their route for one touch access to real-time traffic conditions on the most critical part of their commute.

Local Search: Integration of INRIX Traffic with Bing Search. Users enter a place of interest in Bing search and through the new apps area under local instantly pull up a map showing real-time traffic around that location.

International Language Support. INRIX Traffic is offered in all markets where Windows Phones are sold and available in Spanish, Italian, French, German, Hungarian and Dutch.

The Live Tile isn't really "live" though. Basically the app allows you to create multiple tiles with titles, with those tiles being specific map areas--but they don't show any live info, nor flip as far as we can tell. Still, the addition of that and other features including traffic-forecasting, make INRIX a great addition to your phone.

Acer W4 gets pictured in detail

This week at IFA in Berlin, Germany, Acer was evidently showing off their W4 device aka their first foray into Windows Phone.

The device is far from wow-worthy with 8GB storage, 5MP camera and 1Ghz processor, but perhaps for the more low-end or developing markets, it could be quite compelling. We really like Acer laptops (cough, using one now) so we're interested in seeing where Acer goes with this and other devices. Check the other photos at AreaMobile.

Samsung just pushed out a nice little update to their super slick Photo Studio app. Now Mango-ized, the app supports fast app switching and even gets front-facing camera support. Tapping the button now just makes the screen blank and it circles back to the regular camera.

The app itself is pretty awesome, serving as a photo editor and PhotoFunia mix and with the ability to share to Facebook, Picasa and Photobucket, we really like to have this on our Focus. Grab the app here in the Marketplace.

HTC Tango video calling for Windows Phone

While the majority of news that came out of yesterday's HTC event in London was hardware related, there were some changes on the phone themselves. We noticed (thanks to a tip from one of our readers) on the HTC Omega that there was a Tango app. Before we get into it, don't get this confused with the proposed Windows Phone Tango update that is destined to hit us between Mango and Apollo as it's not entirely related.

So what is this Tango app then? It's basically a video calling service that's currently available on iOS and Android now arriving on Windows Phone. In the photo above, captured by Jay Bennett, we saw the app on an untied Omega held by a Microsoft employee. What we've found out is that this app will connect to other apps across all supported platforms (iOS, Android) and provide a Skype/Facetime experience.

HTC's Titan and Radar put through their paces

PCMag got their hands on HTC's latest additions to the WP7 family, the Titan and Radar, and ran some benchmarks on them. The phones were put through their paces using Browsermark and Sunspider for web-browsing benchmarks and the caveman cart-racer, Cro-Mag Rally, for gaming and video performance.

The Titan, with its mammoth 4.7" display and 1.5Ghz processor, is the flagship HTC WP7 phone, while the Radar will presumably be a more "cost-sensitive" option. The difference between the two was clear in the tests. Let's go to the numbers.

On the browsing front, the Titan scored 32771 in Browsermark, with the Radar only clocking in at 21026. In Sunspider, the Titan was at 66.03, compared to the Radar's 94.40. it's important to note here, that with Sunspider, the lower the score, the faster the performance. PCMag says that while the two new HTC devices still trail the top Android 2.3 performers in the browsing benchmarks, they are still significantly better than their pre-Mango predecessors. A Samsung Focus with NoDo installed clocked in at a measly 6903 in Browsermark, and couldn't even make through a Sunspider 0.9.1 test.

When it comes to the video tests, the benchmarks were less scientific. The Titan ran Cro-Mag Rally smoothly, with a noticiably higher frame rate, whereas background graphics on the Radar were "a bit jerky compared to the Titan." While stat geeks may want to see some concrete numbers, the eye test sums it up.

The Titan and Radar are a nice pair of phones that cover different wants/needs and price points. While they may be the first of the HTC Mango phones, they surely will not be the last. We cannot wait to see what else they have in store.

HTC launches Watch video service for Mango phones

Looks like HTC still has a few tricks up their sleeves as the company is launching "Watch", a video on demand (VOD) service. From the description:

"Check out the latest movie trailers for free and rent or buy premium movies and TV shows."

We do wonder how well this can compete with Zune's video service--then again, perhaps this will fill in the regions where Zune is not yet available? At least with Zune though, you can watch the movie on your TV (Xbox), PC and phone for one price, still we're hoping this offers something unique as an alternative.

Of note, the app which can be found in the Marketplace here is Mango-only, so current non-Mango device won't be able to download it. That's fine too because you're not missing much, it looks like HTCs service is still not "on" yet as there are only two trailers available and neither actually work just yet.

HTC Titan and Radar (SIM free) available October 15th from Amazon UK

Start those countdown clocks boys and girls, as the HTC Titan and Radar are now listed on Amazon UK's website. Fetching for the quite hefty £529.99 ($860) for the Titan and £349.99 ($568) for the Radar, the SIM free devices are set to be released on October 15th--just a few short weeks away.

Of note is the fact that Microsoft is officially calling this Windows Phone 7.5 to differentiate from first-gen devices. Guess old habits are hard to break.

One interesting observation from the new HTC Radar and Titan is that HTC have been able to move their add-on "apps" such as Sound Enhancer, custom camera options and Attentive Phone to Settings--that is these will no longer be apps to download but instead will be baked in the OS directly.

That's a good move for HTC as it seemed kind of silly to have separate apps for those--who wouldn't want those options? It also signals that HTC is able to inch a little closer in modifying the OS. It will certainly be interesting to see what other OEMs do with this ability.

Windows Phone YouTube channel gets a Metro makeover

While not really a huge story, Microsoft has given their Windows Phone YouTube page a make over and while we're not in the business of judging YouTube channels, darn it all...this one looks sweet.

Featuring the HTC Radar, Titan and Samsung Focus, the site has tiles everywhere, emphasizes "people first", their app selection and the web. Clicking on subsections gives you some snappy demo videos and tours of features.

Hey, lots of people rightly say Microsoft needs to step up their game as far as promotion and advertising. We see this new change as a step in the right direction as it's a great design and clearly, Microsoft is officially kicking off the Mango launch today.

HTC Dock Mode app for Eternity/Radar is Sense inspired

HTC can't modify the OS at all, but that won't stop them from bringing their styling to Windows Phone. And we know they will be offering dock accessories for the Radar and Eternity but lots of folks were wondering, what's the point if Windows Phone doesn't do landscape?

Ah, well that's where HTC steps in with their HTC Dock app. As can be seen in our hands-on video, HTC have created an app that is very Sense derived. Let see what we can gather what this app does:

Clock/Alarm

Weather - the background is the current weather and dynamic, the temperature is below the clock

Media player - Music

HTC Watch - Movies, video

Photos - Near the bottom we can see your latest photos. one could imagine tapping them starts a slide show

Sure it doesn't make up for no-landscape support, but as a bed stand or desk accessory, we can't help but really like the idea of having this. You?